


In the Balance

by loveandallthat



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Fix-It, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 11:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15773292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandallthat/pseuds/loveandallthat
Summary: Barry Allen should know better than to go messing with the timeline. The Legends crew should, too. But Barry decides he absolutely has to, and Zari can't resist an opportunity to break the rules when it presents itself so nicely. Suddenly Leonard Snart is back in Central and . . . he has no idea what he wants to do next.





	In the Balance

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't stop myself from writing a fix-it fic for these two. My inspiration tends to strike most when I'm dissatisfied with canon.
> 
> My beta is absolutely amazing. "Can you read 40 pages for a fandom you know nothing about?" I ask her, and she does.

Barry’s at work when he gets a call from Caitlin--usually, that’s not how he hears about any pressing Flash business, so he’s not too worried, but a little confused. Still, he can’t help a twinge of concern. “Hey, Caitlin!” he answers.

“You need to come to STAR Labs straight after work,” she says. “It’s not… well, it _is_ important, but it can wait until then.”

His heart starts beating even faster than usual, and he looks around the office to see if anyone is listening in.

“Caitlin, you’re scaring me.”

“I maybe should have just called you after work,” she admits. Barry is almost placated by her demeanor. But there’s something about the tone of her voice. Barry has a sneaking suspicion that whatever it is, she doesn’t want to deal with it alone.

“Yeah, you think? It’s OK. I’ll just leave early,” he says, definitely looking around again to make sure he isn’t being overheard. He’s thinking that he might be able to sneak out without anyone knowing, since he isn’t on a case.

“Don’t worry about it; I want to wait for Cisco to be here anyway. He’s sleeping in after being up all night playing whatever new game just came out.” Barry can basically hear her rolling her eyes, but there’s still an underlying tension in her words.

She needs to talk to both of them? That’s definitely not a good sign. And Singh walks in while Barry isn’t paying attention, of course. “I’ve got to go. See you soon.” Barry hangs up the phone on Caitlin.

“Personal calls at work, Barry?” His tone is completely teasing; there isn’t a rule against it, and nobody really minds most of the time. But still, Barry can feel himself hesitate to answer, off-balance with nerves.

“Something like that,” he answers, distracted.

Singh looks concerned, suddenly. Barry thinks to himself that’s probably fair. He’s acting a much different kind of weird than he usually does. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah. Yeah! Definitely. I just, maybe, need to leave early. Like now early. I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe. Thanks!” He kind of definitely runs out of the building, a little, but he does stay at the speed of a normal person. Maybe a normal person who goes to the gym a lot, but still a normal person.

But as soon as he’s out of range of any cameras around the precinct, he ups the speed just a bit. He’s at STAR Labs within a minute--dragging along Cisco, fresh from his apartment.

“Really, Barry?” Caitlin asks. The deadpan look she attempts to direct at him is dampened by the fact that she looks ready to burst into tears at any moment.

“Hey, guys,” Cisco says, pulling his sweatshirt a little tighter over his pajamas. “What’s up?” He tries to lean casually on the wall behind himself and misjudges the distance slightly, stumbles, and then settles, crossing his arms.

Caitlin sighs. “You’re probably wondering why I’ve called you all here today…”

“I am, actually,” Barry says.

At the same time, Cisco says, “you didn’t call--wait a minute, you never make weird jokes like that. You’re using humor as a coping mechanism. Something terrible is happening.”

His tone is hopeful, like maybe he’s wrong and Caitlin will reveal that she’s about to try out her new stand-up routine and needs an audience of her most trusted friends. Barry’s really wishing it’ll be something like that, as well. Unfortunately, it appears Cisco knows Caitlin just as well as he thinks he does.

She nods once. “Something terrible is happening.”

“Well that ruins my denial,” Cisco says, running a hand through his hair. “I need a coffee.”

A few seconds later, they’re all holding coffees, and Barry skids to a stop about a foot from where he had been standing previously.

Cisco’s mouth drops. “How did you--you can’t have possibly made coffee that fast--the process doesn’t speed up with you--I don’t care.” He takes a careful sip. How does Barry do that without spilling anything?

Caitlin looks at hers. “Stole it from the precinct after you ditched them to come here?”

Barry shrugs. Caitlin stares at him, looking stricken, clearly concerned about much more than Barry’s rather suspect coffee obtaining methods. She drinks her coffee like she needs it as much as Cisco, but not to wake her up, rather to stall.

When there’s clearly no way to keep naturally dragging this out, she takes a deep breath. “Do you remember when Eobard started up the particle accelerator again?”

When they were betrayed by Leonard Snart in a big way, when Eddie killed himself, when Barry got to go watch his mom die while another version of himself told him to let it happen? When Cisco started to solidify his Vibe powers and was haunted with flashbacks to a death that never happened, unless you define events on a quantum basis--which Cisco sometimes does.

“Yeah, we remember,” Barry answers for both of them.

“Well, I don’t know exactly how yet, but it appears he used some kind of alien technology in the repair process of the particle accelerator. And it seems to have released something similar to radiation, but… alien.”

She’s speaking fast now, no longer trying to drag this out. Cisco still feels compelled to interrupt. “Wouldn’t that still just be radiation?”

“You’d think,” Caitlin agrees. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case. It was not picked up by any of our scanners, and it didn’t show up in any of the blood tests any of us has had since then. Until I developed a new one.”

Well, that doesn’t sound good. They’ve been testing for dangerous radiation even before they had a meta housed there who made it an especially prominent problem. It was part of their routine, so they really should have picked anything up significantly before it reached dangerous levels.

“I’d like to test all of us to be sure but… I’m pretty sure anyone who’s spent a significant amount of time here has alien radiation poisoning.”

*

Barry contacts Kara. She brings Alex and Winn, who confirm that they do, in fact, have alien radiation poisoning and it is, in fact, coming from the particle accelerator, though it’s long since been turned off.

They scrub it for the radiation and deem it clean; it’s beyond Team Flash’s understanding at the moment, but Barry trusts them. With Alex’s help, Caitlin is able to determine that the radiation levels in her and Cisco’s blood is at a pretty dangerous level--a five to ten year survival kind of level. They don’t tell Joe what’s up, but they bring him in to check his blood with a promise to explain later, and Barry thinks about how lucky they are to have his trust. He’s been affected too, though he didn't spend a lot of time there. He and Iris are better off than Caitlin and Cisco, but it’s clearly in their systems, too. That’s worrying. It means the effects could be extremely widespread, people who spent a lot of time in the area, any of the metas they kept there, friends, visitors, enemies, and… whatever Leonard and Lisa Snart are.

Barry’s blood tests fine. He’s not relieved.

Team DEO task Kara to deliver the news. She looks beautiful, Barry thinks, just a passing thought, even as she paces in front of them with tears in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she breathes. “We’ve checked everywhere and Alex and Winn have run all the tests they could think of. There’s nothing we can do for you.” Tears fall down her face and Barry wants to be able to have a reaction like that, but he just feels numb.

The same daze carries him through all the way to the moment when they’re telling Joe and Iris, Wally, Oliver and Felicity, Cecille and, oh _god_ , baby Jenna.

Everyone around Barry is doomed this time, not just Iris. Back then, when they were so desperate to save her without changing the timeline, when he was snatching Snart out of the past just for a chance to get one small part of their plan, Barry thought that he would never feel that desperate again in his life. Back then he’d spent time being willing to kill a meta, and even had a brief crisis of conscience where he imagined himself leaving with the Dominator tech and not looking back.

He thinks maybe that’s why it waits so long to hit him, but when it does he staggers under the weight of it. His friends clearly notice, and he runs for it, straight to Gideon.

“I have to do it,” he says, mostly to himself. “I have to somehow go back and change this with the smallest impact on the timeline possible. I don’t want to put anybody at risk again--at more risk. But if there’s nothing to do but wait to die… I have to fix this.”

Only, Barry didn’t realize how much time had passed, so as he says this, Caitlin and Cisco show up in the room, and nobody else is with them.

“This is a terrible idea . . .” Caitlin starts.

“But we’re going to help you,” Cisco finishes. “It’ll work better with our help. You know that’s true.”

The remainder of the love for his friends hits Barry all at once and reawakens the tragedy of their situation, and before he knows it, he’s crying into Cisco’s shoulder with Caitlin putting her hand on his back.

He’s been through a lot, though, and gotten stronger, so he only allows himself a minute of that behavior. They have work to do, after all.

“All right,” he says, like he didn’t just briefly lose his composure--not that he has anything left to prove to Caitlin and Cisco, anyway. “Let’s get to work.”

*

It’s painful every step of the way when they try to make things as close to what actually happened as possible in the past timeline, to not save anyone who died. Going over the past two years to make sure that they don’t change anything about the past two years, means, well, remembering every tragedy they’ve faced. They check in with Gideon constantly, pitch hypotheticals until they find a path that barely changes anything. It wasn’t in her original programing but well, long story short, neither was this situation, so Cisco and Barry made some updates.

The plan is simple--conceptually simple, but definitely not procedurally easy. Cisco is going to figure out how to make the particle accelerator work without the alien technology, he and Barry will go back in time and quickly replace the strategies at the last minute, so that it appears to Eobard that he’s using the alien technology he gathered, but he isn’t.

“Yeah. Simple,” Cisco scoffs.

“Let’s just go eat. Dinner’s on me,” Barry says, although it’s 11 at night.

“By the way,” Gideon interrupts their exit. “With the current plan, it is possible to save the life of one Eddie Thawne.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah, we’re trying not to cause any significant changes to the timeline.”

“As it turns out, Mr. Thawne’s survival really changes nothing material besides the romantic endeavors of a Miss Iris West and a Mr. Barry Allen.”

That’s a little depressing on Eddie’s part, Barry thinks.

“You don’t have to do that, Barry,” Caitlin says softly. “Nobody would blame you for trying to make the present stay as close to the same as possible.”

“Yeah man, we won’t even judge you or tell anyone. Not that anyone except me and you will remember this anyway,” Cisco points out.

That’s actually a good point that raises another important question. Barry snaps his gaze straight to Caitlin. “Wait. Do you… want us to tell you? When this is all over, if it works out.”

Caitlin purses her lips and looks between them. “Yes,” she answers firmly. “We’re in this together. And Barry… I wouldn’t judge you either.”

But Barry’s already decided and has moved on to thinking about the logistics of it. “If we kill Eobard at that moment instead of Eddie… the same effects take place. I’m not going to just not do that because I want to be with Iris. If she and I are meant to be, we still will be. Even if Eddie is alive.”

“The same effects except the time paradox,” Cisco says. “Couldn’t you just real quick convince Eddie not to have kids? Schedule him an appointment for that good snip? That way it still turns out that Eobard should have never been born.”

Barry furrows his brow and turns to Cisco slowly.

“What I mean is, his remnant caused a lot of the problems the Legends dealt with, is where I’m going with this. Does undoing the paradox change that?” Cisco asks. “He wouldn’t be there with Darhk and Merlyn.”

“No, Mr. Ramon. It turns out that Mr. Darhk and Mr. Merlyn would have been capable of their actions on their own, if they put their minds to it.”

“What is it with these barely relevant Thawnes? I swear there was a point where they mattered,” Cisco mutters.

Caitlin snorts, then covers her mouth like she didn’t mean to.

“So we’re doing this?” Barry asks. He tries to stand up taller, like he’s sure about at least his role in all of this.

In sync, Caitlin and Cisco walk to either side of him and put their hands on his shoulder, his arm. Barry looks between them, and they look back, resolute. He yanks them to himself in a group hug.

“Oh, we’re doing this,” Cisco agrees, muffled into Barry’s neck.

*

The Waverider shakes in a way it never has before, not catastrophically but wilder and more irregular than it ever has.

“Another timequake?” Mick grumbles, not too concerned. He takes another sip of beer, though he’s sprawled out in the general area where he was standing upright until recently.

“Felt like it, but a little different,” Ray says. “Also, can you get off of me?”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Gideon,” Sara calls, standing up, “What was that?”

“Nothing to worry about, Captain Lance.”

“Nothing to--” Sara pauses to fume. “Gideon!”

“Barry Allen and Cisco Ramon changed the timeline very slightly. Don’t worry, most things remain relatively unchanged.”

Ray frowns from where he’s still sitting on the floor next to Mick. “So is that… fine, then? We don’t have to take any action?”

“There are no new anachronisms at this time,” Gideon answers.

They all wait for something to go wrong. It doesn’t. Sara stands with her feet shoulder-width apart and her hands on her hips. “Back to business, then. Let’s see, we were about to go to--”

A watch around Zari’s wrist that none of them have noticed before goes off.

“What is that?” Nate asks.

Zari puts her hand on it, and it stops beeping. “Oh, I set an alarm? To wake myself up. As you do.”

“Sure,” Sara said. “But it’s noon. Or, our irregular time approximation of noon.”

“Well, I’m a gamer. Sleeping in is my way. If you’ll excuse me.” With that, she runs off to her room.

“She’s acting weird, right?” Nate asks.

“I didn’t notice anything,” Mick says.

They all just sort of look at each other.

After a few moments too laden with confusion to even be awkward, Zari returns. “Well, I’m going to go make some repairs to the jumpship. It probably experienced some trouble from that weird timequake. See you guys soon!”

“Who says bye like that when they’re just going to be in a different part of the--she’s taking the jumpship somewhere,” Ray says, as his expression changes from confused to resigned.

Sara grits her teeth. “Mhmm.”

*

Cisco and Barry go back in time to a moment they know for sure they can swap out the alien tech, a time that is fairly soon after Eobard has set up the accelerator using the tech. They had spent a lot of time narrowing down the window of acceptable time, and it works. That aspect of it is anticlimactic, and they have to wait and hide for over too long until the battle is taking place around them. But Barry is committed to saving Eddie.

The principle is sound, just make sure that they’re not noticed and they hit Eobard with a shot that seems like it’s from Eddie.

The strategy really is simple, and a little ridiculous. Cisco physically covers the cameras as soon as they arrive on the scene, and Barry flashes to Eddie and points the gun at Reverse Flash instead of at Eddie--he can remember back to that moment, pinned against the wall, and he knows he’ll be able to see it when Eobard is distracted, not speeding, and not about to catch or dodge a bullet.

So, so many things could go wrong with this plan. And somehow, strangely, none of them do. Cisco uncovers the cameras and they Vibe out of there. It will be fine--Eddie is still the hero, even. Eobard isn’t a time paradox, just a dead man, and the rest of Darhk’s plan will continue as planned. Or did continue as planned? In the past and in the future.

They return, and Barry’s wedding ring has disappeared. He can feel Cisco staring at his hand.

“It’s fine. Really.”

*

“OK, did you guys even move while I was gone?” Zari asks, walking back into the main room. Sara is frowning out the front window, Nate’s on the steps, and Mick is still sitting on the floor with a beer next to Ray, who has organized the empties into a triangle like bowling pins, but hasn’t actually moved, either.

“I’ve gotta say, this isn’t the warm welcome I was hoping for,” a voice announces, enunciating, and with a very unique emphasis pattern.

Mick jumps up immediately, and ten beer bottles fall to the ground. “Strike,” someone says in the background, not that Mick hears it. He gives the newcomer a once-over, steps forward, and throws his arms around Leonard Snart.

The man himself, who had been standing there confident and tall, a teasing smirk on his face, stumbles a few steps backwards but ultimately balances, patting his friend on the back a few times.

Suddenly, Mick seems to be brought back to awareness, and he pulls back and takes two steps backwards. “Sorry,” he says. Two apologies in one day, nobody else better expect one from him.

“It’s fine,” Snart says, and though his voice keeps the usual affected tone, the look in his eyes makes it clear that he means this.

“What. The hell. Did you do?” Sara asks Zari.

Snart interrupts, as usual. “Not happy to see me, new Captain? After that goodbye I have to say, I expected more.”

“It was my program,” Zari explains. “After whatever it was that Barry did, it found a loophole that allowed me to make it so that Leonard Snart never died. I remembered Leo from Earth-X and that his doppleganger used to be on this team, so I thought you guys would be happy.”

As soon as Barry’s name is mentioned, Snart rolls his eyes. “Of course it was him.”

“Leo?” Zari asks.

“Barry,” Snart spits, but the anger in his voice doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Who doesn’t like Barry Allen?” Ray asks, like it’s ridiculous to imagine.

“I don’t,” Mick says. “Or, didn’t.”

“I like him quite a lot,” Gideon says.

“Off-topic! Sort of,” Sara yells. “Zari, we’re supposed to avoid messing with the timeline.”

“That’s why I used a loophole,” Zari says. “It worked if I sent the Leonard Snart in 2016--well, actually the 2016 version of him who wasn’t actually in 2016 at the time he died in one timeline or almost died in this timeline where I saved him--anyway that guy. It worked because I sent him to a completely different planet.”

“In fifteen minutes?” Nate asked.

“Um, no, it’s been a while. I had to go to the past, to the weird Oculus place, time it exactly right so you guys were gone--good kiss, by the way--run in there, save the day, get him out, get the backup plan in, and _then_ ,” she takes a deep breath, “stick him in the future on a completely different planet so that he would age the same amount as all of us, time travel two years into the future for that to happen, pick him back up from those telepathic weirdos, and then fly back here! I’m actually really tired! It’s just, time travel, you know. It means you can be gone a long time and then get right back. At least I made sure not to come back before I left.”

“That was incredibly dangerous!” Sara exclaims.

“I know,” Zari says. “I couldn’t really bring anyone without you getting suspicious, though. Most of you couldn’t have come anyway, since you were already there. That would have really been messing with the timeline.”

Nate shrugs. “I would have followed you if you’d given me a pretty vague excuse.”

“Oh sure,” Zari says, still breathing heavily. “You tell me that now.”

Sara puts her head in her hand, sits down in the nearest seat. “Gideon,” she calls, waving her other hand. “Timeline?”

“Leonard Snart being alive but having his aging corrected to match the rest of you has only as much effect on the timeline as the Legends themselves do. Besides, as nothing in the past was materially changed and only the present was, changes are instead to the future, which is malleable in the first place. Additionally, Barry Allen and Cisco Ramon’s rescue of Eddie Thawne, Iris West’s previously deceased fiance, had already interrupted Barry Allen’s romantic future.”

“Seems like a weird time to bring that up,” Sara says. “But while we’re on the subject.” She walks over to Snart, looking him in the eye the entire time. “I’m seeing someone,” she explains, “so this gesture is mostly symbolic.” She puts her hands on his shoulders and leans in, standing on her toes and pulling him to her level, before she can gently place a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Welcome back.”

*

Caitlin hadn’t taken very much convincing to believe their story, which made them hyper aware of prank opportunities, and yet simultaneously made Barry painfully feel how sacred the bond of trust was between the three of them. Strong enough to handle a harmless prank, of course--they had debated for a while but ultimately decided it wouldn’t actually be that funny. Even if they could convince her that something ridiculous had changed in the timeline, what would really be the point?

It’s evening, and Cisco, Barry, and Caitlin are the only ones at STAR Labs, as is often the case.

“Should we put Gideon back to normal?” Cisco asks, when they’re honestly not really doing anything. Sometimes they gravitate there without anything specific to work on, anyway. It’s probably better than a bar. “You know, without the…”

“The hypothesizing for us?” Barry asks. “Yeah, I can see how that might drive us to actual insanity. Unless you think that we’re doing the world a disservice by not trying to correct for things?”

“That’s someone else’s job,” Cisco dismisses.

Someone walks into the lab all of a sudden, though they hadn’t been watching the cameras and didn’t hear any footsteps. They all stand and face the door in their best approximations of fighting stances.

Barry relaxes at the sight of a parka and a cold gun, definitely a newly learned reaction. “Leo!” he exclaims, and goes over to hug the man. He pulls back, hand on his shoulders, and looks him over. “What happened to your ring? . . . Leo?”

“Not exactly, Barry.”

“Snart?” Cisco yells, having never relaxed as much as Barry in the first place, already feeling that there was something off.

“You do realize that both I and my Earth-X doppelganger are named Leonard Snart, right? Using nicknames or last names doesn’t really differentiate between us.”

“Sure, _Captain Cold_ , but does anybody call you Leo?” Cisco asks.

“Not anymore,” he answers shortly.

“It’s really you,” Caitlin breathes. “How are you alive?”

“Long story. But I suppose I have to give credit to a Legend I’d never met before… and you nerds.”

“Us?” Cisco asks, not insulted in the slightest at being called a nerd. Obviously.

“Your little time travel adventure opened up a loophole for me to be saved just in time, apparently. Lucky me. I have to say I’m not too mad to be alive, but I would rather not have spent two years on that telepathic planet.”

“Telepathic planet?” Cisco and Caitlin ask at the same time. Barry is still just staring, watching the conversation go back and forth and keeping his mouth firmly closed.

“You do not want to know. So what, you two don’t like the other me as much? I’m sure ‘Leo’ would have been offended at that lukewarm welcome. I hear he was quite an interesting guy.”

“Barry was the only one of us he really hugged anyway,” Cisco points out.

“Interesting,” Snart comments. He opens his mouth to speak again, but is cut off.

“It’s really you,” Barry repeats Caitlin’s earlier words.

Suddenly Snart is being embraced again. “Yes, yes, it’s really me. You’re a lot happier about this than I would have expected.” He awkwardly pats Barry on the back--people really need to stop hugging him.

Barry snorts. “I was a lot sadder about your supposed death than I would have expected.” He’s too honest, always too honest. He pulls away, and his brain seems to catch up with the conversation. “And, wait, _what_ happened?”

Begrudgingly, Snart explains. At the end he seems a little more into it. “They were telepathic _and_ psychic, and they could tell me what was going on with the people important to me back home, even though we were in a different time, and the days were a different length and the years were a different amount of days, so I didn’t know it was only two years.”

“It’s… good? That you weren’t alone out there?” Barry’s pretty sure, at least. From what he knows of psychology--and what he knows of torture, it would have been rough if the planet had been uninhabited. “But I bet you hated it, too. Not able to play your cards close to the chest or hide the fact that you definitely care about people and wanted to know how we were all doing?”

That’s kind of right on the nose, but Snart can’t admit that, not now that he’s finally regained the ability to lie. “Something like that,” he says. Shit, well, apparently new habits die hard.

“Out of practice lying?” Cisco asks. Of course these people would catch right on. It was a good way to frame the situation, anyway; you could always count on Cisco for that.

“There wasn’t really much of a point. In the spirit of honesty, though--you snatched me from Siberia in the past, knowing that in your current time I was dead, and didn’t tell me?”

Barry winces. “I’m sorry. I really was trying not to screw with the timeline, since that was what got me into that mess. Also… there were times when I forgot. When everything seemed normal for a second.”

“Except when I talked about your wedding?” Or any time he vaguely or directly alluded to the future and Barry didn’t immediately cut him off to remind him how very limited his future was.

“You still remember that? Oh, shit, do the Legends remember the previous timeline? Not much should have changed but with me and Iris and Eddie that could be pretty awkward…” Barry paces as he says this, and thinks through it properly.

Len thinks back. “Our memories will probably go back to matching this new reality. So remind me later, since you appear likely to never forget it.”

Barry shrugs guiltily. “Cisco and I won’t forget, you’re right. We had to explain it to Caitlin already. But I think since you were pretty involved, you’ll also remember. You know…” he starts, considering. “We really would have invited you to the wedding.”

“After I helped Iris in the fight for her life, I certainly hope so.”

“More for what you said to me after,” Barry says. He doesn’t go into detail--Leonard realizes all at once this is likely because he didn’t tell anybody about it, and why would he have? It’s weird to admit, but that was kind of a personal conversation on both their parts. It may have proven Barry’s point that Leonard had good in him, but people were already starting to believe that on their own. For whatever reason. Either way, it was kind of a relief not to have that brought up around Caitlin and Cisco.

“It explains why you didn’t let me die, anyway. You knew it was more important for me to die later instead. Don’t worry, if I hadn’t been there, Mick was going to die for everyone.”

“Mick Rory was going to sacrifice himself to save the world?” Cisco yells. Barry feels that sam surprise, a little.

“That was your influence,” he tells Len, sounding pretty damn sure of himself.

If only because of his tone of voice, Len is only too glad to correct him. “Wrong again. He was doing it so that Raymond wouldn’t. If anything, Raymond turned Mick into a self-sacrificing idiot, and Mick did the same to me.”

Too much honesty, way too much honesty. He looks back at the conversation in his mind and hasn’t actually said anything he regrets too much, but the fear is much more about how easily he said what he did say. Although, he doubts anyone here knows Mick was more to him than just a useful partner or guard dog.

Barry is positively grinning. “These Legends stories sound positively fascinating. Did you come here for any real reason, or do you want to go grab a coffee?”

Caitlin and Cisco look as floored as Len feels, but he catches himself. “I could go for a burger?” he offers, sounding more unsure than he means to.

“I could eat,” Barry laughs, looking at Caitlin and Cisco like they have an inside joke.

*

OK, Len gets the joke now. Barry has just ordered five burgers, asked if Len wanted anything, and paid for it--which is good, because Len hadn’t gotten any money yet since being back. All he’s done is visit Lisa, who didn’t know he was supposed to be dead, because she didn’t experience the fact that he died.

The thing that he doesn’t tell anyone is that he remembers dying. Then again, really, they should be able to figure it out.

Barry waits for the food and takes it to the table Len’s sat at. The awkward fast food environment is really his own fault for suggesting burgers. Barry eats fast, but regular-fast. He still has five times the food, though.

They are fairly secluded in the corner, though. Len had felt weird about picking that table, but at the same time, it would do a good job of allowing them a degree of privacy for their conversation--though Len understands the double-edged sword nature of that, because it can also be easy to hide in a crowd.

Barry looks at him expectantly. “Oh come on, you’re dying to tell me.”

Len smirks. “Word choice. But maybe a little.” He folds his arms, then unfolds them, laces his fingers together instead. He leans forward, though Barry is still eating.

“It’s like I said. Someone had to stay to make sure that the Oculus was actually going to be destroyed. Raymond tried first, always the hero, and Mick had apparently taken a liking to the guy, enough to die for him. And I couldn’t let _that_ happen.”

“Of course not,” Barry agrees, amused. He’s on his last burger, and Len keeps his stereotypical comment about where do you put it, to himself.

“Anyway, just as I thought it was all over, a woman I’ve never met shows up, jams something into the switch for the Oculus, and whisks me away so fast nobody has time to react, except to be pushed away by a simple wave of her hand.”

Barry is staring at him, and a smile overtakes his face incredibly slowly, like he can’t help it.

“What?”

“The way you’re talking about her, like she’s your hero.”

Len blinks slowly. He hadn’t realized that he was doing that, but he kind of can’t argue with it.

“Well, you and Cisco can have some credit, too, I suppose. Plus, you guys didn’t strand me on another planet for two years, so maybe you come out ahead.” He takes one of Barry’s fries; it’s ridiculous to expect him to sit here this long and watch someone eat without getting hungry again. It’s definitely not a need to distract himself or occupy his mouth so it doesn’t say anything even more incriminating.

Barry pushes the fries to the middle of the table like they’re now communal, instead of complaining. “Right, you said something about telepathy.” Like that’s a normal thing to say in a conversation.

“Yes, two years surrounded by beings who thought that my secrets were casual conversation. Only slightly better than isolation.”

Eyes roam over him slowly. “You seem to have handled it OK.”

“If you’re hoping that having my mind read and thoughts discussed affected me like two years of cognitive behavioral therapy, prepare to be sorely disappointed. I still have _tons_ of issues.”

Barry snorts a laugh at that, then covers his face with his hands, shaking his head. “That’s not funny.” His expression totally betrays him.

Len looks at his watch.

“Hot date?” Barry asks, as if it’s a legitimate possibility that Leonard Snart came back from the fake dead to make the legends drop him off in Central City because of some secret, hidden romance in his life. One that nobody knew about and also one that hadn’t stopped him from going with the Legends in the first place.

“The Legends are leaving in about two hours . . . I have to decide if I’m going back with them or not.” Too honest, too honest. He really should have pretended he’d made a decision either way.

Barry finishes his food, pushes it off to the side, and leans forward. “I would have figured you had a plan already.”

“You know how I feel about plans,” Len says.

Both of them leaning in like this, they’re way too close for enemies, as if that’s even in the right galaxy of what they are to each other these days. They haven’t been enemies since Len joined the Legends, or more likely before that, when Barry and Cisco and Caitlin saved Lisa and Len against his wishes. Or when Len interrupted Iris and Barry just to deliver a warning when he could be killing him, when he was finally out of prison and it was the second place he went.

Len has obviously been some kind of fucked ever since he started coming back from time away and having a “to visit” list that was pretty much just Lisa and then Barry. Mick may have gotten a spot on that list if he hadn’t already been on the ship with him, to be fair.

Barry opens his mouth, looking serious, then looks over Len’s shoulder and says, with enthusiasm Len thinks sounds forced, “Hi Iris! . . . Eddie.”

“Hi, Barry! And . . . Leonard Snart? You’re supposed to be dead.” She covers her mouth. “Oh no, did you grab him from before he died again, Barry?”

He turns around to the sound of the voice, and does in fact see Iris West and Eddie Thawne, likely picking up a less than ideally healthy dinner on their way home from work. “You were right the first time; I’m supposed to be dead, though I’m surprised you know that. Long story. And that may not be a name you want to be yelling in a restaurant.”

Iris turns back to Barry. “You never tell me anything anymore,” she jokes. Len notices Barry doesn’t bother to point out that he literally just found out about this himself. “Five burgers?” she asks, surveying the mess. “You’re really cutting back.”

 _Seriously_? Len thinks. He’s smart enough to have figured out that it’s a result of the speed, but that still seems excessive. He looks Barry over, trying to be subtle, and then accidentally makes eye contact with Eddie, who has definitely been watching him essentially check Barry out. God, even his gestures have gotten too honest.

Barry laughs, though. “It takes a lot of work to look this good,” he deadpans to Iris. But he’s glancing at Len out of the corner of his eye.

“Snart,” Iris says, more quietly this time. “It’s really good to see you alive and well. You helped Barry save my life when you weren’t getting anything out of it. I’ll never forget that.”

Well, that’s uncomfortably sincere. “Don’t mention it.” Please.

Eddie, however, looks on the verge of mentioning it. Len stands up to prevent this. “We were just leaving.”

Iris looks to Barry like she doesn’t believe the obvious lie. Barry shoots Len a quick exasperated look before backing him up. “We really need to get back to STAR Labs,” he says apologetically. “I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?”

Once they’re out the door, Len turns to him. “Plans with Iris tomorrow, then?” he asks, going for casual and neutral. He knows she’s with Eddie now, but he also saw them in the previous timeline and still remembers. Something occurs to him all at once. He stops.

“No plans, I’m just assuming--why’d you stop walking?”

“Does she _know_?”

Barry rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, no? It’s probably only me, Cisco, and the Legends who know about this from actually remembering both timelines. And the Legends will probably only remember because Zari was actually there and can remind them. And Caitlin knows because we told her. That’s sort of it. Even Kara didn’t remember when she visited again, and she’s from a different Earth.”

Who’s Kara? Len didn’t ask. “So Miss West has no idea she used to be married to you?”

“Mrs. West-Thawne,” Barry corrects.

“Ouch.”

Barry shrugs. “I knew this might happen, but I couldn’t let him die for my own selfish purposes. It’s fine.” He rubs his thumb over his ring finger, and Len zeroes in on the movement. Yeah, fine. Clearly.

It’s at that point Len just completely runs out of things to say. He always has a snide response, always has a plan to execute and then throw away, but he hadn’t planned to die, and he hadn’t planned two years stranded on an alien planet and, while he was there, he was pretty limited in what he could actually plan to do. He never expected to be this paralyzed by freedom, by options.

“You really can come back to STAR Labs if you have nothing better to do,” Barry says, like a mind reader. “I was just saying it because you looked pretty desperate to get out of there all of a sudden, but Cisco and Caitlin are probably still there, and maybe Cisco could be convinced to do some cold gun upgrades. He’s always coming up with new ideas. Then if you go back with the Legends maybe you can fight a little better, prevent yourself from permanently dying,” he teases, but his eyes betray his significant worry.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all. But I’ve decided . . . I think I’ll stick around, at least for a little while.”

“Really?” Barry asks, far too eager. Doesn’t he remember everything that Len has done to him? He should be worried about this, if anything.

“Really. I guess that means I have some time before I go turn the Legends down in person. It’s only polite, after all.”

“Not that much time,” Barry says, and before Len can start to answer or even start to think, he’s grabbed and lifted and then dropped onto his feet, all the way back at STAR Labs.

“Oh, hi Barry,” Caitlin says, as if she’s somehow used to that. Len has to keep his hand on Barry’s shoulder for a few extra seconds just to not fall over, and Barry is kind enough to pretend not to notice. “Snart,” she adds politely. As politely as someone can refer to someone else by their last name, anyway.

Cisco walks into the room. “Oh hey, Barry. Snart.”

These people seem to have adjusted really quickly to the idea of someone having come back from the dead. Someone who used to be their enemy, who broke into their building to say hi.

“Hey Cisco! I was going to say we could talk about cold gun updates for better time crime fighting, but it looks like Captain Cold is staying in Central City, so we may find ourselves on opposite sides again.” Barry says this much too cheerfully for someone who should be a least a little worried about his own safety in the future.

It does beg the question, though. Planning a heist would probably still be a high, especially with Lisa here as an excellent partner, even without Mick as their third. And yet, nothing about it sounds especially tempting. The main draw, in fact, is just the fact that it sounds slightly better than going on the Waverider with this strange level of uncertainty he’s feeling. He isn’t afraid to die again--well, he is, but that’s not the reason. If anything, he’s afraid of the idea that he’d be missing out on something else at home.

That’s it, if anything is. It’s just been too damn long since he spent time at home. Even if he doesn’t know what he wants to do here, he knows in his bones it’s where he has to be, at least for now. As for what to do here . . . he has time.

“Maybe you could show me anyway, and I could plan what to steal later?”

Barry looks at Cisco, who shrugs, so Barry takes off for another room, Caitlin behind him. Len starts to follow, but Cisco pulls him aside by his upper arm. What did he or his doppelganger do to convince everyone that it’s a great idea to just hang out in his personal space?

“Hey,” Cisco whispers, allowing the others to leave. “Are you OK?”

Len frowns. “Fine.”

“It’s just . . . I know what it’s like to remember your own death. Actually, we’re about to head to the room where it happened, or didn’t. For me, I mean. But it’s not something you just get over. So . . . I get it. That’s all.”

“Thanks, but I was just on a planet full of clairvoyant types who’d all seen their own deaths.”

“Not like we have.”

“I could always talk to Sara Lance.”

Cisco’s expression turns especially serious. “Dude, I am willing to admit that what Sara went through was way, way worse. She has to remember the death that actually happened to her in this timeline, and the resurrection, and the trouble it caused her. We’re lucky compared to Sara.”

The honesty and compassion in this, for someone that Len knew Cisco barely knew, stops him in his tracks from continuing to avoid the conversation so vehemently. He sighs. “I’m sure the nightmares will go away eventually.” He tries not to make that sound like a hopeful question.

“Well, I barely ever have them anymore?” Cisco offers.

Len snorts. “You think that makes you qualified to be my therapist about this?” He doesn’t mean it to sound, well, mean, but he knows that’s a thing that happens whenever he opens his mouth.

“Nah,” Cisco says. “Comisserator, or drinking buddy, or something.”

He considers this. “I’ll let you know.” Maybe. Probably not, but there is something in Cisco’s eyes, serious as they are now, an understanding that he could crave. It’s too much, though; he starts to leave the room and Cisco gets ahead of him as if to lead him to the right room, though Len knows where they’re going.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but some of the prototype cold guns are pretty . . . cool.  It cannot be safe for them to be here, considering how they’re more effective than most weapons at slowing down the Flash, and if Len can steal them, someone else probably can--not many people, mind, but at least some. He doesn’t mention it, but he does think if he gets bored enough he might as well break in and go for his current favorite.

Len finds himself disappointed when it’s time to leave, but feels an obligation to at least make sure the Legends know he’s not coming, even if he’s not about to try to unpack why, since he barely understands it himself.

“You’re going to be late,” Barry says, like he’s reading his mind, and then grabs him again. He swears, he’s going to kill that kid for this. How does anyone get used to it?

This day was not supposed to culminate in Barry Allen accompanying Leonard Snart to turn down the Legends crew, but here they are. This run is longer, more disorienting, and requires more time of slightly, maybe, leaning on Barry just a little before he’s able to stand upright on his own. Sara definitely notices that.

“Barry!” she says. “I was not expecting you. Great to see you, though.” She goes over and hugs him, though Len isn’t sure they’ve ever been particularly close. Ray goes next, and Len tries not to roll his eyes.

“Great to know you’re on such good terms with my teammates, Barry,” Len says. He almost calls him Flash, feeling like he needs to put on a show; he’s pretty sure everyone there now knows who the Flash is, even Mick. But it still feels like betrayal, on the off-chance anyone doesn’t know his secret.

“Interesting you’re on a first name basis with the Flash,” Mick replies, and well, there goes that. Nobody appears surprised, though. He still feels uncomfortable.

Zari walks up to him, and all of Len’s barriers and sarcastic remarks seem stolen from him. “You’re not coming with us, are you?” she asks. She looks between him and Barry as she says it. Like she thinks there’s a connection or reason to be found in his presence.

But there’s at least one part of it that he can’t argue with. “I’m not coming with you,” he confirms. “But thanks for saving my life,” he adds. He’d thanked her on their ride in the jumpship to the Waverider, especially grateful to get off that damn telepathy planet, but also for the life saving thing two years prior.

She smiles. “It was fun. I’m glad that my loophole worked out. It would have been pretty embarrassing to be wrong about this. So thanks to you, too.”

Len tried to keep his smile more smirk, less genuine. As if there would ever be a reason for her to owe him thanks in this scenario.

“I kind of figured you weren’t coming,” Sara admits. “I’m a little disappointed, though.” Len winks, and she scoffs.

“Me too,” Ray says, sounding like he means it, like he’s also forgotten that Len’s definitely been a jerk to him. He always forgave Len and Mick pretty easily. He was even standing next to Mick, much more comfortably than most people are in his immediate vicinity. Well, Len has no idea what they’ve been like without him there, but he does know he and Mick were both, individually and together, starting to give in to some of Ray’s more hero-like ideals.

Mick hugs him again--it’s probably the third hug of their entire friendship.

His feelings about Kendra and Carter were never particularly strong in any direction, but he does regret the loss of Martin and the absence of Jax. He must already be doing better at returning to his ability to keep some things to himself, though, because those thoughts never make it to his mouth.

Ray walks over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder, because Len’s lost his entire ability to seem standoffish, apparently. Then he hands him some strange device. “Martin made this to talk to his daughter from the Waverider,” he explains. “Call us if you want us to come pick you up!”

There’s a level of optimism Len will never have. But he takes the device anyway.

The Legends who are actually leaving kind of step back, and Len sort of realizes that he’s been doing a bad job of letting them leave by lingering awfully close. He’s spent way too long out of his element--heists, he means, but even too long out of his more recent experience with the Legends. He doesn’t want to admit to feeling lost, but that might not be too far off. The only other logical place to stand seems to be next to Barry, so he steps back by him. Any of the Legends who have half a clue about their history just look back and forth between them.

He admits, it’s probably weird. They were enemies for a bit, but after that they had a few instances of helping each other out. But those were always for specific threats, problems to solve. At this point they’re just plain hanging out. It’s obvious. It’s obvious that they _were_ hanging out, and then Len decided not to go with the Legends, and then Barry just came with him for some reason, like they’re people who just run their errands together.

So yeah, he knows it all looks pretty weird. Maybe like there’s a crisis going on, but probably not with Barry’s easy smile at Ray and Sara. Len accidentally makes eye contact with Mick, who raises his eyebrows like he’s made a different conclusion about their situation.

“I guess I’ll see you guys around,” Len tells them, to try to speed this along, and it seems to work. Sara is the last to leave and she hesitates before hugging him. He guesses their brief, two-year-interrupted, “kissing is OK” phase of their relationship is over.

“Please call,” she says. And then she leaves, too.

Barry waits patiently until Len actively turns to face him, then asks, “need a ride anywhere?” with a smirk.

“I wish I had my bike,” he laments to himself. Barry laughs, and Len hesitates. Lisa has her apartment, where he visited her earlier, but the only place of Len’s she would have been likely to maintain is his favorite apartment, which is only a few blocks from her place. Obviously he trusts Barry, more and more after the affair with Lewis, after King Shark, and after today. But this seems like a risk, though mostly if he decides to start stealing again and Barry will know exactly where to find him at his most vulnerable. So yeah, he gives the address.

He’s there in less than a second, and he locks eyes with Barry for longer than socially normal without speaking, but he can’t think of any good words to break the silence, so he stares, open and desperate. He finally tears his eyes away and Barry starts to walk away just as Len opens the door to the building.

“Wait,” Barry says, and Len’s heart starts to beat faster. “This is actually where you’re going? I thought you would just have me drop you in the general vicinity and then walk the rest, or something. You really have lost the taste for deceit.”

Barry’s right, ordinarily he would have been hesitating at even giving away his neighborhood, smart enough to give himself at least a half mile. He shrugs. “Maybe I just trust you.”

“Ha. Sure, Snart.”

Len turns and starts walking inside . . . and definitely doesn’t need to look over his shoulder to know that Barry is following. He turns back anyway, to try to communicate, _seriously_ , with a glance. It does seem to work, but Barry’s answer is just an overly sunny smile.

He’s tired. He lets Barry follow him all the way to the door, then he turns around to lean against the wall next to it and stare Barry down.

“Not going to invite me in?” Barry asks. Len closes his eyes for a second.

“You _have_ to know how that sounds,” he says, finally, and mostly to himself. Barry just raises an eyebrow at him. “Fine,” Len acquiesces. Come on in . . . if you can.” He finishes unlocking the door behind his back, gets in, and closes and locks it behind himself.

Not even two seconds later, Barry goes _through_ the wall and into his apartment. All things considered, Len thinks he does a good job of containing his surprise by only slightly widening his eyes and pretty successfully fighting off the instinct to jump back.

“Really?” he asks.

“I probably _could_ have picked the lock eventually, even if you’ve done something fancy to it. But this seemed faster. And more unexpected.”

Well, yes, obviously, why would he have expected that? That thought must have been written all over his face, because Barry just openly laughs at him.

“I have some new skills,” Barry says. Len doesn’t buy the false modesty even a little bit.

“You could have saved that reveal for the next time you’re trying to stop me from doing something illegal,” he points out.

Barry shrugs. “Good luck planning around it, anyway.” He looks like he knows that Len is already trying, though. He also looks pretty damn pleased with himself, which means that Len is not at all doing a good enough job of keeping his awe to himself.

“Why are you still here, Barry?’

He hesitates to answer. “Why did you hang around with me all day?”

Len can’t answer that, which he knows is the point. “Fine,” he says. “Can I offer you a beverage, or are you just here to snoop?”

This is mostly directed at the fact that Barry has already walked over to the bookshelf and started scanning the titles. “Snoop, mostly, but I’ll have whatever you’re having. Though if you meant anything alcoholic, it’s wasted on me because of my powers.”

He’s just learning all kinds of interesting things about Barry Allen today, isn’t he. He hands Barry a glass of water and he takes a sip without complaining about the uninspired drink choice or, apparently, even imagining that Len could be out to hurt him somehow.

Len basically falls into the spot on the couch next to Barry; he really is tired. Tiredness is a good excuse for whatever it is they’re doing, anyway, which begs the question. “What _are_ we doing?” he asks, as if Barry was reading and would understand the emphasis.

“Catching up, hopefully,” Barry replies. “It _has_ been three years. And I thought that I’d had some . . . times, but I’m more curious about your adventures, now.”

“You really want to hear that?” Len asks. He’s not opposed, really. Barry already knows the parts of his life that are supposed to be actual secrets, so this seems fairly non-threatening. Though, like Barry, he’s more curious than he is desperate to share. The last thing he knew about was when Iris was at risk from Savitar, though he remembers her as Barry’s fiancee and not best friend, as the timeline has “reduced” them to.

Besides, they also didn’t have tons of time to get into their stories, since they were busy stealing from a high security facility.

So Len gives him the abridged version of his year on the Waverider, which Barry understands quite well due to his familiarity with time travel, strangely enough. Barry also knows more about the past two years of Legends business than he does, and Len doesn’t even know how that makes sense, considering he acted like he hadn’t seen Sara and Ray in quite some time. Barry only interrupts for very occasional clarifying questions, and mostly listens until the Len stops at the Oculus, since he’s already explained his rescue. He has kind of a mischievous look on his face that Len isn’t sure he likes.

“So Ray totally had you and Mick whipped by the end there?”

Of course that’s what he took from it. Len rolls his eyes. It’s not even worth arguing.

“Your turn?” he offers instead. “Fill in the blanks you left me with on that whole Savitar situation, and beyond.”

Barry winces noticeably and Len resists the urge to backtrack and say that he doesn’t have to explain if he doesn’t want to--Barry knows that.

“You didn’t tell me about the telepathic planet,” he stalls. “Plus you said you got news about what was happening here. Shouldn’t you know already?”

Fine. “Surprisingly, there’s not that much to tell. It felt mostly like waiting, after Zari dropped me off and said she’d be back in two years. Of course, time seemed to pass differently there, but it wasn’t that long before she was back. Believe it or not, I didn’t want to abuse the kindness of alien strangers, so I didn’t ask them to use their powers for me all the time, even after I’d tested them and realized they were probably telling the truth. I just asked if people were alive, mostly. Lisa usually, Mick and the Legends, sometimes--it was harder for them to locate them, for obvious reasons. You and your STAR Labs friends once or twice,” he admits, more quietly. “As you’ve seen, I got into some weird honesty habits, but like I said. I’m not a different man.”

“No,” Barry agrees. “You’re the same man I’ve always known you were.” The declaration feels heavy, somehow; it sits out there and weighs Len down, keeps him from moving or commenting.

The silence seems to embolden Barry eventually, because he starts to haltingly describe what happened with DeVoe, through to the end and his eventual defeat. The whole thing sounds honestly terrifying, and Len feels for Barry in a way he didn’t expect.

“I sort of wish I could pour you a bourbon or something after that.”

Barry smiles like Len has actually surprised him. “I mean, you could. I just wouldn’t be affected by the alcohol, so it feels a little like a waste when someone else could actually get something out of it.”

Len stands up, pulls out two glasses and the most expensive stuff he’s got, and walks over to slam the glasses down on his coffee table and pour two fingers into each. He leaves the bottle next to them before he returns to his previous spot. Barry glances sideways at him and Len stares resolutely straight ahead. So Barry picks up the drink on his side. The alcohol and calories won’t affect him, and he appreciates the gesture. He holds it out until Len gets the idea and picks up the other one and touches it to Barry’s, and they both sip.

“That’s pretty good,” Barry says, meaning it. That’s kind of the point. The drinks are gone fast, though, Barry finishing quickly because it has no effect, Len because he’s out of his comfort zone. Usually he’s pretty good at thinking on his feet, but he and Barry have always kind of thrown each other off. That’s what it feels like tonight, anyway. He’s definitely thrown off.

And now there’s no more excuse to stick around each other. Catching up felt like a last ditch excuse that Len was happy to go along with, because he’s finding himself deeply curious about what it is about Barry Allen that changed him so thoroughly. It’s like he’s had to drop everything else in his life, namely the tour through history, to solve this one mystery, because he can’t go on until he knows.

So instead of doing or saying anything productive, he wonders about these things while pretending not to look at Barry, and also pretending he isn’t about two minutes from falling asleep on this couch. Barry picks up the empty glasses and stands up, walking them over to the sink at normal human speed, then walking back to stand in Len’s line of sight.

“I’m going to let you get some sleep,” he says, amusement leaking through his words. He’s off at Flash speed, and a scrap of paper floats down in his wake. Len just closes his eyes. He’ll get it in the morning.

*

_Did you seriously give me your number?_

_What’s the worst you can do with a phone number?_

_Ask Cisco._

_OK, I already knew the worst things you could do with a phone number, but you could have done any of them without mine._

_That’s fair._

_What are you doing today?_

_Whatever Lisa wants._

_Ask her if she wants to stop by STAR Labs and see Cisco. If you want to come by, that is._

_Great, thanks, she read that over my shoulder. We’ll be there in an hour._

*

They’re right on time, down to the minute if not the second. Lisa immediately walks over to Cisco, though her trademark cockiness is gone. Len stays back to watch, but this time Barry comes to stand by him.

“How many girls have you kissed since me, Cisco?” she asks. She tries to make it sound accusatory or like she expects the number to be zero.

But he pauses to think. “Two?” he looks at Caitlin and Barry for confirmation.

“I think so?” Barry shrugs. “Believe it or not, you could have secrets from me.”

“I couldn’t, but I appreciate your faith in me.”

Barry scoffs. “As long as we’re not talking about people I’ve kissed recently.”

“What’s wrong with--oh, right,” Caitlin says. What’s wrong is that she isn’t Iris, of course. “I’m with you, though, I don’t need to have this conversation.”

But of course when Caitlin turns back to her work and Lisa to Cisco, Len asks, “so, the pre-Iris?”

Barry sighs. “You could have known about her; you weren’t even time traveling when I was dating Patty. And there was nothing wrong with her, I just . . . couldn’t be with her without telling her my secret, and I couldn’t tell her.”

“That sounds like something wrong. Anyway, I guess despite the speed I wouldn’t have imagined you got around before Iris, especially when you were so gone on her.”

“Can we not talk about that? Besides, it’s not like you have anything to brag about.”

Len shrugs. “I kissed Sara.”

“What?!?” Barry yells. Every head in the room turns to them. Come to think of it, it’s probably strange that they’re having a conversation that could be shocking to anyone without it being actively a cause for concern on someone’s part. “Sorry,” Barry says sheepishly. The others seem to recognize that the exchange was just gossip which, while a hundred times weirder for them than danger, appeared to not be on their list of what to worry about today.

“Mostly because she thought I was about to die,” Len clarifies.

“She knew you were going to die and left you there? I thought it was just Ray and Mick. What kind of captain does that?”

“No need to get unexpectedly mad on my behalf, Barry.”

“Yes need,” he says, eloquently.

“I’m not even dead, though.”

“Intent is important.”

“Results matter more,” Len says.

“Then I’m fucked,” Barry laments. Len laughs, surprised.

“I think your eventual results have mostly been good.”

“Thank you for that glowing recommendation.”

“Any time.” When he’s maybe stared at Barry for too long, Len looks to his left and Lisa is right there. He hadn’t even noticed that anyone had moved. Whatever conversation that Lisa came here to have with Cisco is clearly over, but they’re both fighting smiles, so it seems like they got somewhere good.

Lisa looks at him. “Are you coming?”

“Just give me a second,” he tells her. She narrows her eyes at him, but does.

He walks casually over to Cisco. “Be nice to my sister,” he says. “But also be careful.”

Cisco raises his eyebrows. “I think I know her better than you think I do.”

Maybe, but not nearly as well as Len does, of course. But he can’t even keep himself from being incredibly fond of Cisco Ramon, knowing he played just as big of a role in Lisa’s rescue as Barry did, when they had no reason to trust either of them and Len actively worked against them. Then he worries he’s going to do something ridiculous, like mention these things.

“Thanks,” he says, without saying what for. He manages to keep the other parts to himself and feels moderately successful.

“Yeah,” Cisco says. He looks suddenly serious, like he knows exactly what he’s being thanked for, anyway.

But Len narrows his eyes at Cisco. “Just remember I can still beat you in a fight.”

Cisco looks unexpectedly thrilled at this prospect. “You think?”

“Try me.”

He expects Cisco to, you know, approach him. Not to stand there and put his hand out, palm directed at Len. He concentrates for a few seconds, and then Len feels a force unlike anything he’s ever felt, pushing him back ten feet. He manages to remain on his feet, but mentally he’s floored.

“ _What_?”

“Time travel isn’t my only power,” he says, but doesn’t offer anything else up.

Len has nothing left to say, so he turns around and walks to the doorway, waves over his shoulder, figuring he’ll still catch up to Lisa outside, which he does.

“You and the Flash seem awfully cozy.”

“Shut up. You’re not even supposed to know he’s the Flash.”

“Oh please,” she says.

Yeah, at this point, he’d be a little surprised if she hadn’t figured it out.

She stops him so that she can make sure he’s focused on what she’s saying. “Please don’t panic and mess this up.” He doesn’t think that’s necessarily fair; he has plenty of issues, but that’s not his usual unhealthy response to situations. Or maybe it is and he hasn’t really realized yet. He did kind of push Mick away. He betrayed Team Flash already once, but they didn’t exactly have much to sabotage.

“Are you actually giving thought to what I’m saying?” Lisa asks.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back to dismissing everything that comes out of your mouth soon enough. Things are just complicated right now.”

Lisa looks like she understands; her frown smooths out and she even starts to smile. “Trying to figure out why Team Flash still sees good in you after everything?”

She’s pretty much hit the nail on the head. “I know why they still see good in _you_ ,” he deflects. “You didn’t do anything to them and you only kissed Cisco because you actually liked him. Like him. And you pulled Mick off of him.”

“Yeah, I’m great,” Lisa agrees. She laughs and shakes her head. “When I was telling Cisco that I would have turned out even worse without you, I also told him I knew he couldn’t imagine anyone worse than me. But he didn’t think that at all. And Flash did all of that after you and I intentionally betrayed him, but you still killed someone just to keep them from killing him. We’re pretty lucky they focused on the small good things we did in the midst of all the terrible ones, and decided we were worth saving.”

Saving. How many times did Len tell Barry he didn’t need to be saved, and how many times and in how many ways did Barry do it anyway? It might not count when it’s his fault Len is in danger anyway, but that really only counts for one instance.

“Yeah. That’s what I want to figure out.”

*

They are officially out of excuses to see Team Flash outside of just wanting to, and Lisa comes over to hang out with Len aimlessly because neither of them will call the other on being a little lost.

“What were you doing while I was gone?” Len asks Lisa one day. It’s kind of pointed, since he’s seen her spend hours per day in his company, clearly not having any other pressing business.

“I have friends and interests,” she argues, affronted. “I took a few things that I wanted, spent some time with people who have similar interests. Isn’t that what we all do?”

She does seem to have been doing better than he would have expected. She insisted that it was a comfort to her to know that he had truly been trying to be a good person. But still. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” she says seriously. It’s a very short second of vulnerability from her, especially considering that she already cried all over him when he first showed up in her apartment. She quickly goes back to a sparkling grin. “Now, how are we going to get ourselves some more time with our favorite superheros?”

Heists are one thing, but schemes are another. Even though he has a prize in mind, the fact that the real goal of this adventure is to see Barry Allen is really turning his crime movie into a romcom against his wishes.

“Fine,” he says, “We’re going to go steal a prototype cold gun.”

“Not really much in it for me, but I’m in.”

Len’s already broken into STAR Labs twice in two days, though the second might not count since they were already sort of invited. But they’re not particularly worried. If anything, Len is worried that they’ll get in, get the gun, and escape, and nobody will notice until Cisco takes them back out to work on them again.

“You could stay home and just ask Cisco out like a normal person,” he points out. “I can handle this one on my own.”

Lisa throws her hands up. “You could just ask Barry out!” she returns, like it’s remotely the same thing. And besides.

“I never said I wanted that.”

“I never said I wanted to date Cisco.”

“OK, but that’s pretty obvious,” Len says. Lisa gives him a _look_. “It’s different.”

“You’re not denying it,” she points out. Yeah, he knows.

“All right,” she says. “Let’s go elaborately try to get people’s attention with a complicated plot because we don’t know how to be regular people.”

Like he’s going to complain about that.

Planning is easy because they know the building really well, aren’t particularly afraid of getting caught, and because they’re a little more enthusiastic about it than they normally would be. It’s different, of course, from when Len was obsessed with not being stopped by the Flash, and becoming a better thief because of him. Though he does look back on Mick’s support in that time pretty gratefully.

Lisa would be going along with this for the opportunity to tease Len even if she didn’t have another reason to want to be there, he knows. He also knows, deep down, it’s much more support than it is teasing. He thinks he should never sacrifice himself again if he has these people, but then remembers that these idiots are the exact reason he’d do it again. Please, nobody give him the opportunity.

Midnight seems like the most fun time to go to STAR Labs, they decide. It’s another benefit to this planning, that fun gets to be a priority.

They plan it with an unnecessary attention to detail, no backup plans because they’re not their father and they don’t expect anything to go wrong. There are new motion sensors in the room, though. They’re hidden pretty cleverly, almost impressively so, but Len does manage to notice and prevent them from going off and alerting anyone, with his cold gun.

And then suddenly, the Flash is there.

Len cocks his head at him, leans against the wall holding a prototype cold gun and ready to grab the trusted one from the holster at any point. “How?” he asks, smirking.

“We set up an alert with the thermometer if the temperature dropped,” Barry answers. “I told Cisco I could handle it.”

“Lisa will be so disappointed.”

“Well, she could have called him if she wanted to see him so badly.”

Len pauses to think before he opens his mouth to avoid being obvious. Except then he looks at his hands and at his thigh and sees no cold guns until he looks up at Barry, holding both of them and with his cowl pulled back to reveal his face.

“You could have just called me, too,” he says. “It would have been much easier.”

So much for subtlety and scheming. “With the security here, I think that this actually was pretty easy. Besides, would you have answered a phone call from me in the middle of the night?”

Barry shrugs. “Probably, yeah. You really don’t understand, do you? I haven’t thought of you as my enemy in a long time. I’d hesitate to say we’re friends in the traditional sense, at least historically, but that’s a lot closer, don’t you think?”

Yes he does. Closer, but not exactly what he’s hoping for. Not that he knows what that is, either. Barry’s eyes suddenly light up, and he flashes away for a second, and puts the prototype gun back where it came from in less than a second. Then, at normal speed, returns Len’s gun to his holster, maintaining eye contact the entire time. Len swallows. That’s not normal, he thinks. People do not do that. Barry smirks, and steps back.

“Hey Lisa. I’ll have Cisco call you tomorrow. Can you get home OK?”

Lisa comes in from where she was apparently hiding right by the door and Len wonders what she heard or saw from there; she certainly looks pleased with herself. “I’ll be fine,” she answers, holding the keys to Len’s bike and shaking them demonstratively. Damn it, Len needs to remember to keep his guard up even around his sister, apparently, if she’s lifting his keys without him noticing. She walks out.

Barry just says, “Great!” and disappears, comes back changed out of the suit, flashes Len to the door to an apartment in a fairly nice, if slightly hipster area of the city.

He starts to take out his keys, and Len laughs. “So you do remember how to use a door.”

“I practice when no one’s around, so I don’t lose my touch,” Barry jokes, playing along.

Len just shakes his head. “Did you really bring me back to your place?”

“Yeah,” Barry says, shamelessly. There’s no way that Barry didn’t know at this point what Len was implying, and it was starting to feel unlikely that he was merely playing along as a fun joke. Not that the alternative was any more likely. Barry being a teasingly flirty friend or being genuinely interested in Len seem equally likely. Actually they seem equally unlikely, considering the friend-or-more in question is Leonard Snart. “You didn’t seem opposed.”

“I’m not.” He follows Barry into the apartment. It’s definitely bachelor-y, a little cluttered but not messy.

“Water? Beer?” Barry asks, closing the door.

“Sure, one of those,” Len says, so Barry brings him a beer--at Flash speed, of course. He has one for himself, as well.

“I always have trouble falling back asleep if I wake up in the middle of the night,” Barry says. The way he drops into the cough makes him look pretty tired, doesn’t match with what he’s saying, but Len isn’t about to call him out on it.

“And you’d still come running for me,” he says instead.

“Every time.”

Len drops the game all at once. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” Barry waits for elaboration, and Len sighs. “Don’t act like you can’t tell. Somehow you noticed I was just trying to get your attention tonight.”

“Tonight was the last night of a massive, ancient jewelry exhibit at the museum. And you were at STAR Labs stealing a cold gun.”

He didn’t even know about that exhibit, which probably proves Barry’s point further.

“Planning a heist suddenly sounds more like a way to pass the time than a thrill,” he says. It’s the truth, even if it’s also a way to avoid mentioning the fact that he wasn’t even trying.

Barry turns on the couch to face him entirely, in a sudden movement, with a bright smile, too much for this time of night. “It’s now,” he says. “I told you it’d happen.”

“When? Or more importantly, what?”

“At Iron Heights, when I visited you. I said it was only a matter of time before you’d want to be a hero. Then you joined the Legends and you were willing to sacrifice yourself and now you’re bored with your previous life.”

All of that is true enough, but it doesn’t sit right. “I was bored for two years on an alien planet and I still stayed here,” he points out. He wants to argue, needs to argue, is clenching his fists with it.

“So it’s too much for you to do it full-time? You need to be able to come back and see Lisa sometimes?”

And you, he thinks, ridiculously. He looks at Barry seriously, as if there’s a chance that he can convey that without actually saying it. “Lisa, Central City, all my money and stolen property . . .”

It’s like he’s trying to remind Barry of their past, mostly the bad parts. But Barry already thinks he was right that there was good in him, that it was only a matter of time before he revealed his hero side.

“Maybe you guys can just work out a deal where you’re only on the Waverider for part of the year?”

Is that what he wants? It makes him sound kind of old, like someone who can’t handle being gone for the whole time, can only do it in small doses. “You’ve said you think I’m a hero. The Legends are . . . the perfect level of heroic and chaotic for me. You’re right. I love it, but I can’t be away from Central City that long again.”

Barry nudges his arm, and Len had not realized he was that close. “So you have a plan. Why do you still look lost?”

“Are you psychoanalyzing me, Barry?”

“I’m in far too deep to be asking you these questions on a scientific basis.”

“Please, like you STAR Labs guys aren’t just experimenting on each other. _On_ each other, not with each other, as far as I know.”

“I kissed Felicity Smoak but she’s more of an inventor/hacker, and she really only contracts with STAR Labs.” Barry looks pretty pleased with himself for that joke, for being able to so easily turn it right around.

Len’s off-balance. It’s late. “Don’t talk about girls you’ve kissed.” Shit, that wasn’t a normal thing to say. “I’m ‘lost’ because I can’t figure out why you have always had so much faith in me. The fact that I am here right now and have done anything that even remotely lives up to your expectations only makes me more confused.”

“Oh, I can explain that,” Barry says.

Len waits.

“I’m very smart.”

Len laughs.

Barry laughs too, but he turns seriously rather quickly. “It was always the little things. I stopped you, and you were determined to figure out how to stop me. And I know that’s what you were doing when you and Mick kept trying to bait me, and learning how to get to me. Obviously none of that made me think you were a good person. But it was when I saw those traits used differently. When you stayed true to your word and never told anyone who I was, stopped killing people, challenged yourself to stick to those rules _and_ try to pull one over on me. The way you’d do anything for your sister, but you still tried to keep me out of it, to keep me safe, and hesitated to kill me. For your own sister! I know, I saw it in your eyes that you trusted me and Cisco to save her, too. Don’t even try to pretend you didn’t.

“The fact that you came to warn me when Mardon and James were after me. That you joined me on a mission to save Iris despite knowing you’d get nothing out of it, just to see a different side of me. And don’t deny that either. There was no other reason. I was right. You have honor. But you absolutely have compassion, too. The stories you told about being on the Waverider? Even before . . . the end, I mean. I had read your file before I deleted it from everywhere for you, OK, I _know_ where you started, and it’s so amazing that you ended up here, but I’m not surprised at all.”

There’s nothing else for it. He pulls Barry in by the front of his shirt and kisses him hard on the mouth.

Barry goes willingly like he was waiting for it, puts a hand way too gently on the side of Len’s face and kisses him back without missing a beat.

Len has known, on some level, that he wanted this to happen. But the reality is more than he could have ever expected. He absolutely loses himself in it, isn’t sure if it’s Barry who pushes him back or him who pulls Barry over him, but that’s where they end up, and the contact of the full length of their bodies is wonderful, electric.

He has poor impulse control, so he runs his hands over Barry’s back, pauses. Barry pushes himself up enough to take a breath and to smirk, invitingly, and Len isn’t about to turn that down, so he slides his hands right into Barry’s back pockets. Barry relaxes back onto him, and he runs his tongue along Len’s bottom lip until the kiss gets deeper, until Len moans embarrassingly. Barry pulls back to move to kiss his neck and Len turns to give him more room, but Barry sighs against his neck, making him shiver, and then he just relaxes his full weight on Len, relaxing and burying his face in Len’s neck.

“Do _not_ fall asleep on me,” Len teases. Barry somehow manages to flip them from his position, at Flash speed.

“I’ll fall asleep under you,” he says. He’s looking up at Len like he’s just thrilled to be here, though he does look a bit tired. Len leans down and kisses him gently, smiling when Barry still leans up for more.

“Do you want me to leave, Barry?”

“You can stay,” Barry says, like he means it. “But I’m definitely going to be sleeping, which is what I recommend you also do.”

Len shrugs. “I could sleep.” Barry laughs and shakes his head. They stand up, and the mood shifts slightly, but Barry just puts his arms around Len’s shoulders and leans in to kiss him again, sweeter this time.

“I doubt I even have to tell you to borrow whatever you want,” Barry says, pulling him into the bedroom (and Len wishes they weren’t so tired, he really does.) Barry goes into the bathroom and Len just throws off his jacket and jeans, goes to get ready for bed after Barry’s out, and walks out of the bathroom to the view of Barry sprawled out in bed. He looks for a moment too long, and then joins him.

“This isn’t what I expected from tonight,” he confesses, but that should be obvious at this point.

“Don’t pretend this isn’t what you wanted,” Barry says, and when did he get so confident, anyway? He moves closer to Len--he acts a little like someone who’s not used to sharing a bed, but he does get into Len’s space anyway. It works out; Len’s not really used to sleeping with people, either.

“It crossed my mind,” he admits. He pushes up on his elbow and kisses Barry again, feels like he won’t be able to sleep if he doesn’t, or it won’t be real in the morning. “I still kind of can’t believe that you really want me.”

“Hey, I already gave a pretty good speech, if I do say so myself. If anything, I should be asking you.” Len opens his mouth to answer. Barry laughs. “Tell me in the morning.”

*

He tells him in the morning. And shows him.

*

A little after noon, Barry gets a text from Cisco.

“Oh, hey, Ollie’s in town!”

Len literally rolls his neck just to stop it at the correct angle to give Barry the most dramatic “really?” look possible. “You call the Green Arrow ‘Ollie’?”

“You know who the Green Arrow is?”

“Secret identities are all fair game on the Waverider. Also, none of his cover-ups were particularly clever. It’s not like it affects me, anyway.”

“Well you guys are basically one degree of kissing removed,” Barry jokes.

“Gross,” Len replies. “I’m assuming you mean Sara, not that I’d judge you for your past.”

Barry laughs. “No, you would have two degrees with me, from Felicity.”

“This is a ridiculous conversation,” Len says.

“I know. Just thinking how fun this will be if you come to see them with me at STAR Labs.”

Len narrows his eyes at Barry, who just keeps smiling and leans in to kiss him, which is definitely going to work in convincing him. At this point it’s pretty obvious that he’s not going to turn down Barry’s dumb requests. They’ll likely butt heads in the future but Len really is the doe anything for people he cares about type, as Barry has noticed with Lisa.

“Just take me to my place so I can shower and change.”

*

“That’s weird,” says Cisco, as they walk in to STAR Labs. On a Saturday, like they like their jobs that much. “You guys were together last night and your together again today.”

Except Barry just winks at him, which, weirdly, makes Len pleased that they’re not hiding anything. Makes him wonder what Barry’s been talking to his friends about, if it’s been anything like him with Lisa.

“What’s Oliver coming here for?” Barry asks. Cisco looks at him furtively, nervously. “He knows about the Green Arrow. I didn’t tell him!”

Len has already taken a seat at one of the desks, crossing his arms and leaning back, relaxed, to watch the show and wait until it’s actually a good time to say something. Which he admits might come sooner rather than later, since he usually can’t hold back his commentary.

In fact, he’s about to jump into this conversation already when Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak walk into the room, and suddenly he finds it hard not to stare at Felicity and wonder how she and Barry interact.

Oliver frowns as he notices him. “Leo Snart?” he asks.

“Technically yes, but not in the Earth-X way you probably meant,” Len answers. “Leonard Snart, Captain Cold, back from the dead. So nice to meet you.” He just waves, remaining in his seat, but Felicity, after looking at Barry, walks over and puts out her hand to shake.

“We’ve sort of met before. I was there for that whole train situation? With Cisco and Caitlin.”

Len remembers, suddenly. He shakes her hand, which at that point acts as a physical representation of the awkwardness between them, Len having a weird, barely-there jealousy, and Felicity probably wondering if he’s going to leave here and go kill some people.

“Stop looking at me like I’m going to kidnap your family. You’re probably safe. _Somebody_ kept arguing that there was good in me and I accidentally believed him.”

Felicity’s eyes shoot way up; Barry just smiles when she looks at him for confirmation.

“Don’t look so smug,” Len teases. “Maybe I meant Raymond.”

Barry just looks at him, trying for exasperated but mostly ending up fond. “You did not even know Ray until you were already joining the Legends.”

“Wait, Ray Palmer my ex-boyfriend Ray Palmer?” Felicity interrupts.

Len rolls his eyes. “You’re saying you kissed Barry, dated Ray Palmer, and married Oliver Queen?”

Felicity throws her hands up. “What can I say? I have good taste in men!”

Len wants to argue that if that were true she would have stopped at Barry or Ray before she got to Oliver Queen, but he’s been standing at the entrance to the room with his arms folded the entire time, looking rather threatening and muscular and Len kind of wants to keep him at only moderately pissed off until he’s sure that Oliver respects Barry enough not to kill his invited guests.

No, it’s too good. “If that were true, you would have stopped at Barry,” he says.

For a second, Oliver looks like he’s waiting for Len to realize the implications of what he just said and backtrack, but he just turns to look at Barry, who looks a bit pink, but also like he’s fighting a laugh.

“I don’t disagree,” Oliver says finally. He smiles when he looks at Barry, but the self-deprecation is a little unexpected coming from him.

“Keep it in your pants,” Len admonishes, suddenly emboldened in his desires to test his boundaries.

Barry raises his eyebrows but doesn’t actively jump into the situation, so he feels like he hasn’t crossed any lines quite yet. If anything, Barry seems just as curious what’s about to happen.

Felicity is the only one who doesn’t seem surprised when Oliver walks over to Barry, puts his hands smoothly on the side of his face, and moves until their lips are half an inch away. Len suddenly remembers Oliver Queen the playboy. Barry isn’t phased, though, even though Len is, and wouldn’t have blamed him in the slightest. He just throws his arms around Oliver’s waist such that Oliver’s arms end up falling to Barry’s shoulders. He tightens his arms.

“I’m glad you’ve stopped resisting my hugs,” Barry says, like an old joke. Oliver shakes his head.

Len looks up at a bit of movement to realize that Felicity has come to sit on the desk by his chair. “That was kind of hot,” she says, pointing with a pen--as if he can’t guess what she’s talking about. “I wish they’d actually kissed.” He actually coughs, surprised.

The Barry and Oliver hug breaks up and Oliver looks over at them like he knows exactly what happened, though he can’t have heard them.

Felicity stands up and moves to stand next to Oliver, who puts his arm around her. “Sorry we short-changed you,” he tells her.

Suddenly it’s a lot harder to dislike Oliver Queen.

Barry looks at him, hesitantly, but playfully. There’s a question in his eyes, and Len answers it, though he’s looking at Felicity and Oliver. “We could help you out with that,” he says, going for casual. This is clearly exactly what Barry was going for, and he leans over with his hands on the arms of the chair and kisses Len softly. His heart speeds up a little bit, which would be embarrassing if anyone could tell. When did he become a teenage girl? He can’t resist putting a hand on Barry’s neck even though he knows they shouldn’t put on a show.

Felicity gasps, and Oliver chuckles softly. Barry pulls away, which is good, because Len wasn’t going to do it.

“So that _is_ why you’re here!” Felicity accuses Len.

“I honestly didn’t have anything better to do.”

“Yeah, not better than Barry!”

Cisco has come back some time around the kiss, from apparently having gone to get something from another room, turns to Oliver. “Anyway, about those arrows you wanted me to try to make . . . I had a better idea.”

“Thank you, Cisco,” Oliver says, “I expected nothing less.”

They walk off, going to test them out with Oliver’s more precise aim--no offense to Cisco’s.

“Shouldn’t we follow them?” Len asks.

“I don’t really need to be here for this. I might catch up with them later, if anything. I mean, I’ll stay here if you need to go somewhere on your own.”

“I was going to go see Lisa,” he says, which is true. “But you’re more than welcome to come. Honestly, she’ll probably be mad when she figures out we’re . . . anyway, and she hasn’t truly met you. Oh, shit, she did figure out you’re the Flash, though.”

“That’s fine,” Barry says. “Don’t think I missed that, though. We’re what?”

Len scrunches up his face. “Seeing each other?”

“Are we?” Barry looks like he’s enjoying this awkward conversation far too much.

But Len refuses to waste time feeling uncomfortable about this, especially since he feels like Barry might actually be nervous, and just projecting. “You know I’m in a weird place, that I might be gone for long stretches at a time. Even though you can apparently just show up whenever you want. And I have this communicator.” He pats his pocket. “Anyway. You know all of those things, and if you’re OK with them, I’m all in. We can date, be exclusive, you can call me your boyfriend, I’ll turn down any honeypot missions forever . . . I will call you almost too much, visit whenever I can, go out, stay in, fight metahumans, travel through time with you. I will continue to be hard for most people in your life to get along with, and I will continue to have issues from my childhood that might show up at times that surprise you, and maybe even me. I will probably always prioritize Lisa over you. I will be more rational and less emotional than you. So if that’s enough for you . . .”

“Do you want my promises, too, or can I just kiss you?”

“I’m kind of a greedy man, Barry. I’d really prefer both.”

“I do want to date you, exclusively, and call you my boyfriend. I want to call you all the time and see you when I can. You can honeypot if you really need to and feel comfortable with it; I trust you. Plus Sara told me you’re better at it than Ray is. We can have all those adventures together. I’ll be more emotional and I’ll always want to save everyone. And I’ll always think there’s good in you.”

And then he kisses Len again, and Len surges into it like he was dying for it.

*

“So glad you two kids worked things out,” Lisa says when they show up at her place, not intentionally being obvious, but then again, being pretty obvious.

“And how are your endeavors?” Len deflects.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that. Hi, Barry. Thanks for saving my brother’s life.”

“I didn’t, really,” Barry says. “That was Zari.”

“Not what I meant,” Lisa says, off-handedly. “So what, we going straight now, Lenny?”

“Well, I’m not exactly going straight, but I’m probably going to stop being a villain. You can make your own choices, Lisa. It’s the twenty-first century.”

“Ha-ha,” she says sarcastically. “I guess I have enough pretty things to last for a while, and maybe I’ll find myself a nice man to settle down with, and he’ll treat me every once in a while. I’ll be pretty bored, though.”

“Maybe you can make friends with the local vigilante contingent and sign on as a contractor,” Len suggests.

Barry shrugs. “We could use the help.”

Lisa smiles. “Well, I’ll think about it. The company is pretty good. Except Caitlin, she’s a little uptight.”

“You can’t call her uptight,” Barry says immediately, remembering the events at STAR Labs. Lisa smiles, glad that he caught on.

Len looks between the two of them. “I didn’t really expect you to have inside jokes.”

“He probably knows all my secrets, if Cisco blabbed.”

“Cisco didn’t tell me anything about what you guys talked about. I already knew about your dad the first time Len was on my radar, when I saw his file before I, before they were mysteriously deleted from every database, although the prison stint may have ruined that. Anyway. I know it was Caitlin who upset you, but she felt terrible. And I was going to go talk to you, since that’s usually my job, but Cisco stopped me. So he wasn’t going to tell us anything more than what you did.”

“He’s a great guy,” Lisa says forlorn.

“He is,” Barry agrees.

“When I was with my dad,” Len starts, haltingly. “The first time you found me, and the time when you came back after finding out about the bomb. Both times, I was ready to trust you. And Cisco. And maybe I should have done so a little earlier.”

“It would have probably made things a little easier, stopped it being so last minute,” Barry admits. “But we all understood that you were just terrified. And you knew your dad better than we did. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as simple as me speed-stealing the detonator.”

He’s exactly right; there was too much to worry about, and in his panic, Len was trying to control as much of the situation as he possibly could. Bringing Barry and his team in, while it did work out for Lisa, was such a terrifying and impossible decision for Len to have made. He knows now, would have even known back then if he were in his right mind, that if he walked right into STAR Labs after his massive betrayal of them, explained his situation, and asked for their help, they would have given it to him. Maybe they would have tried to make his role in the plan as painful or humiliating as possible, but they definitely would have been able to do it--did do it, even when he was working against them.

Barry looks at his phone. “Caitlin went home, but Cisco is still at STAR Labs with Felicity and Oliver, if you guys want to go on a triple date.”

“What makes you think that Cisco would want that? I’m sure that’s not what the text said.”

“Just trust me,” Barry insists. They seem to, gathering their stuff and starting to leave.

Barry starts to walk off, too, but Len stops him by gently grabbing his upper arm. “You didn’t save my life; you just made it possible for it to be saved. Just like you didn’t sacrifice my life; you just made me the person who would do that.”

He shakes his head at Len. “I just saw that you already were that person.”

*

They keep it simple by going for drinks. Len’s really glad, because he was in such a good mood he probably would have agreed to something ridiculous like bowling or karaoke or mini-golf. After a little while, Eddie and Iris show up, too. Cisco and Lisa had gone off on their own for a little while and returned to greet the newcomers, seeming more settled.

Apparently, they’d been talking about Cisco’s many inventions. Everyone here now knew that the timeline was changed, otherwise they’d be a little confused about Len’s reincarnation. A little more confused, anyway. But with Caitlin out, the only people there who knew the real changes from the timeline were Len, Cisco, and Barry. And Barry and Len hadn’t given Cisco the full Legends side of the story.

“It was one of my best inventions,” he tells Lisa, apparently jumping back into the conversation after the niceties of talking to Iris and Eddie. “I just noticed the other day it’d been stolen. I guess it could be used for nefarious purposes, but it was mostly intended to be a gag gift.”

“Which invention?”

“Oh, you might not have seen it, Barry. It was actually for Eddie, though he stored it back at STAR Labs. Remember when he was stuck on desk duty with a broken foot? I didn’t want to build him a whole robot to pretend to do paperwork for him, so I just built a right arm that functioned on its own, and projected the rest of his body holographically. It totally looked convincing, and the arm part was able to move the mouse around and click, like a way overly complicated MouseJiggle app.”

“You made a hand that pushes down and makes a convincing looking human image?” Len demands.

“Yeah,” Cisco says, then hesitates. “That’s a pretty weird, reductionist way to explain what I did, but also technically correct."

Barry gets it then. Len’s a little drunk, so he uses that to excuse his next action, which is taking three steps forward and throwing his arms around Cisco Ramon.

“Thank you,” he says, with none of his usual sarcasm.

Cisco just looks at Barry over Len’s shoulder, perplexed. “I’ll explain later,” Barry promises. Cisco accepts this, even returns the hug, though it’s gone on a weird amount of time.

Len pulls back, and grabs Barry’s hand. “My place?” he asks. They find Oliver and Felicity closer to the entrance to the bar, since they’ve snuck off for a little privacy. Felicity winks at them as they leave, and Oliver just waves over his shoulder.

Barry flashes them there, of course. He shoves Len against the wall by his door and keeps him there with the full length of his body, kissing him thoroughly. “Unlock the door and I’ll actually use it this time.”

“My hands are busy,” Len says, squeezing them demonstratively. Barry laughs into his neck, ends up with his keys from his pocket, and opens the door himself, in a fraction of a second. So Len begrudgingly moves, though he was really enjoying that position, and enters, locking the door behind him before skipping any pretense and going straight for the bed.

*

Len probably won’t spend this much time in Central on his next break, but he takes about four months with Barry. And with Lisa, and Cisco and Caitlin to a lesser extent, and all their friends following from there.

But he’s back on the Waverider, after having hugged some people and kissed one of them goodbye, with that fun duality of happiness for his work and sadness for leaving.

The new Legends are wary, apparently after having heard Mick’s stories. He and Mick get along the same way they used to but better, even though it’s awkward to know that Mick loves him and thinks he’s the best man he’s ever met. Not because he doesn’t feel almost the same, but because they’re not the types of people who can comfortably operate around each other with that knowledge.

Weirdly, Ray helps that happen. Maybe not so weirdly, he was always good with them, and with steamrolling people with kindness until they couldn’t help but buy into it.

Sometimes when Barry calls him, he answers the communicator while he’s still in the same room as some of the other Legends, and they hear some of his overly fond greetings, the slight change in the tone of his voice.

They think about that whenever he makes an overly heroic, undeniably sympathetic decision during a mission. He’s still ridiculous; he still lifts wallets, and he can still be callously logical. But sometimes they’ll find him sitting with one of the people they’re working with in the timeline, honestly listening to what they’re saying and feeling. He clings harder than anyone to the idea of not leaving anyone behind. He shoves Ray and Mick out of the way of a falling ceiling and gets himself very slightly hit with some of it, or at least that’s what they all hear him insisting to a rather frightened Barry Allen over the communication device.

Barry joins them twice, with Cisco. He insists that he time travels better with Cisco, which is always a weird thing to say aloud. Those missions are somehow even more chaotic, with the addition of more Ray-level do-gooders to counteract the Captain Cold and Heatwave duo. And Gideon is a little happier on those missions.

And the few times a year that he gets a long break in Central City, even with all the time fuckery, Barry is always there to meet him when the Waverider drops him off, and a small percentage of the time, Mick gets off, too, to see what it is that Lisa and Len see in Team Flash.

Len joins them sometimes, even tired from Legends adventures, but a lot of the time he forces Lisa and Barry to take breaks with him that they don’t need as much as he does--except that they do, they just haven’t realized yet.

Besides, these breaks are the only reason that he’s able to turn to Barry in the middle of the night, tell him he loves him, and hear it back, and that’s the real point. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please review! Criticism is welcome, too. Any thoughts you may have.
> 
> I spent so much time talking with my friend about how Len is a drama gay that I’m worried that I made him . . . NOT NEARLY DRAMATIC ENOUGH.
> 
> I sent Len to Kanassa from DBZ. Kanassans can transfer their telepathy but that is NOT the story I set out to write, haha. That’d be… yikes. Anyway that's just a silly Easter egg I put in there to make myself laugh.
> 
> I accidentally made Cisco the McElroy brothers a little bit maybe?
> 
> I didn’t want Sara to have the kiss of death so it was important to me that she kiss Leonard when he comes back. That’s such a fucking sad trope. So she had to kiss him again.
> 
> Zari’s actress (Tala Ashe) was on a soap opera (As the World Turns) for a few months in 2008, and split up a couple that I was a fan of at the time. Even though I stopped liking that couple, too, I have residual anger. But I did make her quite the hero of this story, didn’t I?
> 
> I actually like Eddie just fine but the useless Thawne jokes kept coming to me.
> 
> Yes the Mick/Ray is super intentional.
> 
> I do, in fact, know how the most recent season of Arrow ended, but since they’re just guests in this fic I feel like maybe spoilers don’t need to happen.


End file.
